


Hallelujah (Over It)

by vehlr



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Divorce, F/M, Nostalgia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 08:34:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5736826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vehlr/pseuds/vehlr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It did not happen overnight, and it did not happen quietly, but it happened and now they were sitting in an office getting divorced.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hallelujah (Over It)

**Author's Note:**

> _Then the time for being sad is over_   
>  _And you miss 'em like you miss no other_   
>  _And being blue is better than being over it (over it)_
> 
>  
> 
> \-- Hallelujah, Panic! At The Disco

Varric basks in the sunlight filtering through the large window of the solicitor’s office.

She walks in and takes the seat next to him without a word, without a glance. She looks good, he realises - better than she had when this ordeal had started. Clearly divorce suited her.

Not for the first time, Varric wonders if she might have found someone else - someone better. But it is fleeting - she had always been her own strength, her own anchor. She could weather any storm without help, and so she had weathered Varric and come out the other side.

He wishes he were half as competent.

In truth, if someone were to ask Varric exactly where it had all gone wrong, he could not say. He knew only that they had been happy once - genuinely happy, the sort of happiness that led to proposals and ever afters - and then they were not. It did not happen overnight, and it did not happen quietly, but it happened and now they were sitting in an office getting divorced.

These things happened, he would eventually say, and he might even mean it.

“As you both know, this will be the final appointment. Once these documents are signed, you may part ways completely. Ms Pentaghast, if you please.”

Pentaghast. A small, bitter part of him - the part that held to all those horrible things he had said - sneers at the name, reminds him that she had not taken his. Perhaps she had known, it says. Perhaps she had always known.

He shakes the thought away. It did not matter anymore, after all.

Her signature is short and spiky, quickly given. She does not look up, does not acknowledge he is even there. He supposes they have said all that needs to be said to one another.

“Mr Tethras, if you would.”

The pen is heavy and cold in his hand, and Varric thinks perhaps it is supposed to be, to represent the weight of what decisions must be made in this room. Or perhaps, he thinks, it is just fanciful conjecture, whim and wishes. He has had enough of those.

*

_“An ending doesn’t have to be a bad thing, Seeker.”_

_Her head in his lap. Her eyes, bright as she meets his._

_“Truly?”_

_“Sometimes things end because it’s right. The story stops, even if the narrative could go on, because it’s the right place to leave the characters.”_

_“But I am always sad when the stories end, and I wonder what comes next.”_

_His hand in her hair. His smile, encouraging her own._

_“That just means it was good.”_

*

The sound of his own voice surprises him.

“You know what I miss?”

She does not respond, instead staring out the window.

“I miss reading to you.”

She straightens, shifting slightly. “Truly?”

“Yeah. I miss reading to you, and watching your eyes get wider with each dramatic turn.” He rolls the pen between his fingers. “I miss your advice, too. When me and Hawke got into fights, and you’d listen carefully before calling me an idiot.” He huffs a soft laugh. “I miss you calling me an idiot.”

“Varric -”

“I know.” He scribbles his signature on the documents. “I miss you, Cassandra, but I’m not… I know what this is. I can’t pretend that if we tried again it would go any other way.” He drops the pen to the desk, pushing the papers over. “But I still miss it.”

A beat of silence.

“I miss you reading to me, too,” she murmurs, and he manages a weak smile.

“You know I’ll always love you, right?”

“Do not make me into _her,_ Varric. You owe yourself more than that.”

He does not reply to that, instead reaching over to squeeze her hand. “I just meant - it wasn’t because I stopped _loving_ you.”

“I know.” She squeezes his fingers before pulling back, getting her chequebook out. “I always knew that much. It was why I did not say something sooner.”

He swallows, before getting out his own. “Half and half, right?”

“As agreed.” Her pen hesitates for a moment. “I still have your banking details, you know. So do not try and pull anything funny.”

“Would I dare?” The humour comes easily, still. He wonders about that.

Two payments slide over the desk, two pens click, two pairs of hands busy themselves in these last moments of peace before the stark new future they had just signed to begins in earnest.

*

_“Cassandra, please -”_

_His hand reaching out for hers._

_“Stop. Stop filling the space with words. Not this time.”_

_“You used to like it when I told you stories -”_

_“Do not dare.”_

_“I love you.”_

_Her hand, tight around the strap of the overnight bag._

_“It is not enough.”_

*

Cassandra is the first to break the silence.

“Do you think - do you think we could ever be friends again, one day?”

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I’d like to think so, but… I just don’t know.”

She nods, accepting the truth for what it was, before pulling herself to her feet, bag slung over her shoulder as she hesitates, looking down at him.

“Don’t say it,” he murmurs quietly. “Please.”

Her hand rests on his shoulder, fleeting, and for a moment he thinks she might say it anyway, just to spite him. “Thank you,” she says instead, before crossing to shake the lawyer’s hand. Varric lingers, because it is all he knows how to do.

She stops in the doorway.

“Varric?”

“Yeah?”

“It… it was not you. You know that, right?”

He swallows. “Objectively, yes.”

“You are a good man. One of the greatest I have known. But you… you were never _mine._ That is all.”

“I could have been.”

“No,” she says sadly. “You could not. Just as I could not be yours. I think that is rather the point.” And she leaves, heels clicking quickly until there is nothing left.

In the silence, he breathes deeply, the sunlight warm on his eyelids.


End file.
